As someone remarked to me about 20 years ago, "the good old days really were".

I have to agree. It's not the fiscal bad times, but the slob culture the Lefties have been pushing through the media, the educational system, some churches, as well as government for the last 50 years or so.

The whole value-neutral, non-judgmental, if-it-feels-good-do-it, let-it-all-hang-out thing. If you were thinking back then, you knew it was a lie.

Mr Churchill was so right, "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.".

PS I remember during the last campaign they had a Photoshop of the ShamWow ads with Zero instead of Vince, with the line "All Sham, No Wow".

That's what we've got.

Along with Maggie Thatcher's line about socialism and other people's money.

Today's progressive is tomorrow's conservative. We have reached saturation and it is time to reassess our priorities. Many people already have and their conclusion is that the human condition has not fundamentally changed.

As for stuff, a lot or otherwise, it is a choice. There is still no requirement that we possess stuff other than basic necessities. Unfortunately, the definition of basic has been distorted and exploited, and the result is a progressive confusion. Too many people no longer voluntarily moderate their behavior and desires. They dream of instant gratification without consequence.

Apparently, some of today's version of those creative types have started moving to Detroit. Real estate doesn't get much cheaper anyplace else in the developed world and Detroit has some very cool architecture. I'm not too keen on hipsters but if they invest themselves and their money in this region I'm cool with them.

"Nothing feels like that anymore." Agreed. Sort of. But I mean, maybe it was naive to feel those feelings "then," anyway.

Sometimes there is the feeling of something wonderful even now, of course. I see it in the youth, in their eyes and their dedicated demeanors, whenever the newest SmartPhone or Kindle or some other such gadget comes out. Why then, it's euhporia for like twenty days straight.

But then, decent song writer once noted that "the good ole days weren't always good and tomorrow's not as bad as it seems." Lotsa truth to that too.

NYC still vibrates alright. But anxiety is what it is vibrating from. The formerly creative places are now very dangerous places.

This sounds like another excuse for no jobs, and therefore no money, and therefore no family.

Isn't homelessness, poverty and wandering the streets so cool and vibating? No it is as bad as it gets, and Sweet Old Obama is engineering it to stay that way forever...to save the planet from CO2 pollution, you know. What a gigantic fraud!

@Harrogate: It was not naive to feel those feelings then. The 1960's were the infancy of the computing industry, which changed everything and is still doing so. Moreover, the industry was small enough that one person could singlehandedly change its course, and many did.

"The main thing about the scene back then was that there was this amazing feeling that something wonderful and amazing was going to happen inevitably"...

Nothing feels like that anymore.

This is really a boomer complaint. People were young in the 60's and those same people are old now.

It's natural for young people to be happy and optimistic. You discover sex, you feel love, you have a baby.

In the 1960's we had drugs that made people feel happy, too. The pill was discovered. You could have sex with multiple people without having a baby. Plus marijuana, LSD, cocaine.

Today kids are more conservative. They know about divorce, and abortion, and AIDS, and drug overdoses. So we've made our kids more fearful and they are not as heedless and reckless (and fun-pursuing) as people were in the 1960's.

But discovering sex, falling in love, having a baby, these are all things that young people do throughout time. It's why youth is an inherently happy and optimistic time.

That's what makes them real opportunities. Few people saw the potential back then either.

Every generation goes through these stages, eventually getting to romanticizing the past and underestimating the future.

The opportunities are out there and things will happen, but it will be the next generation who will do them, as long as we don't handcuff them with our own greed and constant ringing of that damned bell on the nightstand.

Speak for yourself. I feel like something's happening, or can happen, but people like you and Glenn are in the way because you're so sold on what you're thinking you can't see any of it.

What "most people don't think" is your thing - as though a teacher should leave them in their comfort zone.

Today Glenn is promoting "winning" through being disingenuous and stupid - whoopee! - even when challenged by the likes of Jennifer Rubin.

Good luck on a message like mine ever getting through. I could have the answer to all of our problems (and I think, to a large extent, I do) but fat chance you law school types will help - hell, you aren't even filing law suits when they're called for, or encouraging you former students to do so. It's all "read my blog" for you guys.

The surge of creativity and movies and dance and theatre and poetry and literature was too big to stop."

Whatever he imagines the "surge" included, there's not much to show for it now. It's hard to think of anything produced in '60s NYC (or '60s anywhere else) that might merit all the gushing. But, of course, that's not what Sanders is interested in. His subject, his object of delight, is how it felt to be young and in the middle of the "surge," not what the surge produced. Like most exercies in nostaligia, the Sanders version is mostly an attempt to recapture lomg lost pleasures, not long lost realities.

I hope it's as enjoyable for him the second time around, as it all plays out again in his fantasies.

Old man looks back fondly on his youth and thinks the world was better then. He then shakes his fist at youngsters walking across his front lawn. But he has a mustache and a bird on his shoulder, so this somehow makes the story more interesting. Film at 11.

Ah those were the days; I could afford to live on 7th between C &D, still safe and cheap. Heard John Coltrane live for five bucks, saw Allen Gingsberg on the streets, went to New School at night and ate at the Horn and Harder-- All on sweat shop wages from a factory in Brooklyn.

Current crop of kids will look back fondly and remember coming out of college, debt-burdened with no job prospects, trillion dollar federal deficits and the prospective decline of the USA looming large.

It is difficult to hold optimism when your freedom is eroding. We are significantly more regulated (not free) than we were in the 1960's and, even then, the cry was for more freedom, free speech, free love, personal freedom.

Just what we've lost because of the Patriot act (TSA, drones, executive killing, personal data) as well as the loss of any privacy should make us unhopeful.

the same was true here in san francisco. back in 1968, i rolled into town with a suitcase and five bucks in my pocket...stayed with a friend for a couple of months...got a lousy entry-level job...and was then able to afford my own one-bedroom apartment in a fairly nice part of town. meals were cheap, the chinese laundry kept me clean for a couple of dollars, i could hang out at city lights for hours reading every book on their shelves, get tipsy on 50-cent beers at my favorite bar, and some of the all-time greats in entertainment could be seen at places like winterland or the fillmore for three bucks. it wasn't a lavish lifestyle but it was enough to keep a young person busy and happy.today, my very same cheap apartment is a 'high-end' condo selling for well over a million bucks. so,unless you're a trust fund baby or some muckety-muck in an internet company, a young person would be lucky to find a closet to live in that they'd have to share with five other roommates. most eating establishments are gourmet or charge gourment prices anyway. a ticket to see some mediocre talent is gonna cost ya 75 bucks, at the least. even the museums, which once were free, are too expensive to visit. ..and the city wonders why there's no longer the fresh infusion of young folks from around the country. the place seems stagnant, frozen in a mindset from a bygone era that doesn't match today's realities. the divide between the well-to-do and the less-so is enormous. the joy and color that once permeated the city has given way to drab, hollow-eyed, soul-less zombies staring into their smart phones as they trudge to some quasi-political rally thinking that somehow makes them plugged-in and 'hip'. i do thank my lucky stars that i was around to enjoy what now seems like an impossible golden age because, if these are the young folks 'good old days', i feel truly sorry for them.

Silicon Valley in the mid-80s was a great place. Southern California in the 60s.

My theory is that different places have their golden era at different times for different people (Silicon Valley wasn't great in the mid-80s for mechanical engineers, but great for software engineers.)

I grew up in a dump of a town, but it had that golden era quality of the nannies staying at a distance. We got away with all sorts of shit that would get us arrested and/or kicked out of school today. (This was when Playboy was on the newstands, nobody asked for ID and the cigarettes were just being placed behind the counter.)

I still get that "something wonderful and amazing was going to happen inevitably" feeling when I watch my kids (oldest 39 youngest 17)grow up and go out in the world fall in love get married and raise their children. It's once removed now, but always full of exciting possibilities. There are so many choices and so much potential.